TORONTO — The proportion of cord-nevers in Canada has tripled since 2013, according to the latest Video Consumption Research study conducted by Charlton Insights on behalf of CTAM Canada.
The 2019 Video Consumption Research report is based on data collected in July 2019 from an online survey of adults aged 18+. Of the total survey sample of 3,129 respondents, 346 identified themselves as being cord-nevers — meaning roughly one in 10 Canadians surveyed said they have never subscribed to a cable, satellite or IPTV service, which represents a three-fold increase compared to six years ago, according to the study.
When cord-nevers were asked where they source their video and TV content, 73% said they consume video content online, 57% said they subscribe to a streaming service and 34% said they stream video content for free. In addition, 13% said they use torrent sites to consume video for free, and 9% said they used an Android/Kodi box.
Compared to TV subscribers, cord-nevers are younger, more likely to live alone and more likely to pirate content, according to the survey. The majority of cord-nevers’ viewing time is spent streaming video content and their preferred screen is a TV set. It will be interesting to see what happens with the cord-never cohort when we emerge from the Covid-19 crisis.
Not only do most cord-nevers see little need to start paying for a TV subscription, the majority (58%) strongly agree that TV subscriptions are too expensive, according to the study. At the same time, 28% of cord-nevers said they strongly agree it is getting too expensive to subscribe to all the online streaming services they want, and 20% strongly agree the number of different streaming services available is becoming overwhelming.
CTAM Canada members can access the 2019 Video Consumption Research: Canadian Cord-Nevers report by clicking here (membership login required).
